Beneath the frozen flanks of East Asia's most revered mountain, in China's north-eastern Jilin province, a huddle of sleek new processing plants will soon be packaging its precious essence: spring water. Known to the Chinese as Chang-baishan, the mountain and its premium mineral water are the stars of the country's frothing bottled-water market. In a country with just 7% of the world's freshwater supplies but 20% of its population, cheaper bottles of water taken from river basins, lakes and underground, and of purified tap water, are even more popular than expensive mineral waters. In the past five years China's guzzling of bottled water has almost doubled, according to Eu-romonitor, a research firm, from 19 billion to 37 billion litres. It has also more than doubled its share of global consumption since 2006. In 2013 the country overtook America as the biggest market for bottled water by volume, according to Canadean, another research group.
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